Columbus man gets 37-year sentence for rape, other charges

Thursday

Aug 21, 2014 at 12:01 AMAug 22, 2014 at 11:22 AM

She lived in terror for three months while the man who raped her in her Olde Towne East apartment remained at large. Yesterday, she told a Franklin County judge that she wouldn't feel safe for herself or others unless her attacker was sent to prison for life.

John Futty, The Columbus Dispatch

She lived in terror for three months while the man who raped her in her Olde Towne East apartment remained at large.

Yesterday, she told a Franklin County judge that she wouldn’t feel safe for herself or others unless her attacker was sent to prison for life.

“That’s what I want,” the 28-year-old woman said. “He will do it again to someone else. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that, ever.”

The chances of Antiwonne M. Goins victimizing another woman decreased dramatically minutes later when Common Pleas Judge Richard A. Frye sentenced him to 37 years in prison.

With credit for the year he has spent in jail, Goins, 35, will be 71 when his prison term ends. He is not eligible for early release.

“I’m satisfied,” the victim said after the hearing. “I can put it behind me now.”

Goins, of Galli Court on the West Side, didn’t react to the sentence and showed no emotion during the hearing. His attorney, Nathan Akamine, advised him not to make a statement.

Goins told the judge that he didn’t want to make a statement “due to the emotional mental state I’m going through right now.”

He was convicted last monthby a Franklin County jury in a trial on charges of rape, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, felonious assault and gross sexual imposition. The case hinged on DNA evidence, with two forensic scientists testifying that Goins’ DNA was found on the victim’s neck and right breast.

Frye sentenced him to 30 years for the jury verdicts and added seven years after finding that Goins is a repeat violent offender. He had been released from prison less than six weeks before raping the woman.

The victim identified Goins in court as the attacker during her testimony. She said she awoke in her apartment on Franklin Avenue on the morning of May 31, 2013, to find an intruder standing over her bed. She said he pinned her to the bed and choked her until she blacked out for a few seconds, then performed oral sex on her.

She escaped by running out a door after asking the attacker to let her get a drink of water in the kitchen. She said he followed her out the door, pushed her down a flight of stairs and twisted her neck, causing her to black out briefly again before he fled.

He was arrested in August 2013 after DNA from the assault matched his profile in a database of convicted felons.

Frye called it remarkable that the woman survived the attack.

Assistant Prosecutor Robert Letson urged the judge to send Goins to prison for as long as possible, citing the brutality of the incident and his history of violence.

He said Goins had been involved in three shootings. He pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery when he was 18 for his role in a holdup during which a 60-year-old man was fatally shot by an accomplice. For that, he served seven years in prison.

Letson said Goins committed a sexual assault when he was 15, then molested a 5-year-old girl after he was released to a foster home. He was accused of stalking a female corrections officer in prison.

“I can’t present a more-violent offender to this court,” Letson said.

The judge said the court has given Goins multiple opportunities, “but he consistently turns to guns, drugs, violence and sexual misconduct.”

The Dispatch does not identify victims of sexual assault unless they agree to be named.